


Applebee’s Is Probably Evil Anyway: A (Sur)Veillance Soundtrack

by shortitude



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Crack, Friendship, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortitude/pseuds/shortitude
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you just have to deal with a surveillance mission which might stem from adults needing space for ‘hot dates’. ARTEMIS. ROBIN. KID FLASH. Young Justice does team bonding experiments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Applebee’s Is Probably Evil Anyway: A (Sur)Veillance Soundtrack

_cold on a mission so fall them back  
let'em know, that you're too much  
and this is a beat, that you just can't touch  
yo, i told you  
(you can't touch this)  
- **Hammertime, the great philosopher of our time**_

 

 

 **MARCH 9TH, 20:00  
A HILL WITH A CABIN, SOMEWHERE**

A couple hundred feet down the hill stood a solitary cabin, with a solitary lamp flickering idly on the porch. The scene bothered Artemis, who had been staring at the same spot in the upper-left window for three hours now, for a few reasons. First of all, who built a cabin on a hill – around half-way to the top, not winning any points for being mysterious and secret-layer-y – considering how said hill was just on the outskirts of a major city, the forest wasn’t as dense as it had to be for the cabin to be hidden, and there was an actual road, pavement and all, leading straight to an Applebee’s? Had villains forgotten how to thrill the League – and their assorted branches of allies, such as Young Justice – with a chase through the crater of a volcano? Had they seriously started valuing a varied lunch option over walls that were damp and echoed? Or was this mission just a damn hoax?

Second of all, the flickering porch light frustrated her. She could practically hear the noise it made - _flickr-flick, flickr-flick, flickr-flick_ \- in her ear as if it were Woody the Woodpecker, and she were a tree. And she wasn’t even _close_ enough to the cabin – no, she ( _they_ ) was hidden in a tree further up on the hill, binoculars installed into some fancy goggles that Robin and Wally had designed as a side project for this mission, and no super hearing to justify the fact that she kept wanting to swat at her ear everytime her eyes caught the lamp. In her just opinion, if you were a rich villain, or anyone with sufficient skills, or simply not a couch potato, you’d spare a few dollars to change the damn light bulb. It was just the courtesy that bad guys never thought of extending to heroes – whereas they all kept Mount Justice in tip-top shape, because it was just _nice_ to do that.

The third thing that bothered Artemis about the scene wasn’t related to the cabin, surprisingly. It was the mission itself. She knew they were here to survey, hence surveillance (“But why not just _veillance_ ,” Robin kept yapping in her ear), even though their instructions hadn’t been completely clear. Someone from the big guys had heard about some suspicious activity or something, blah blah blah – anyway, after a year in the group, she’d learnt something: their mission instructions were usually specific; and if they weren’t, it was either not a mission and just an excuse to send them to take out the trash while Black Canary went on ‘hot dates’, or to test their ability to decide on a course of action and build up on teamwork. Artemis had her bets on the hot date.

Of course, she might’ve been wrong, and this might’ve actually been one of Red Tornado’s innovative addition to the Make Artemis and Kid Flash Stop Fighting Every Three Minutes Plan (which she knows exists because she’d seen the outlines of four different plans scribbled down in Robin’s notebook during study group). It would explain why they had been provided with walkie-talkies (a smoother, more badass generation, installed into their masks), and why Robin was there – everyone seemed to think that the boy wonder was the wall that could come between the two strong personalities in the group and tell them to chill out before he locked them in a closet together.

And fine, Artemis would’ve been okay with the mission in general, because unbeknownst to most of their teammates, apparently, she and Kid Flash had started to work just fine as teammates. (It was usually Wally West she had trouble dealing with.) But for the past half hour, after Robin and Wally had determined that their mission was probably not going anywhere, that there were no mikes in the trees, and that _nothing was happening_ , the boys had started to have philosophical debates. Their philosophical debates had themes which went from how many minutes to leave pasta boiling to which was the easiest way to build a bomb using only things found in a kitchen pantry. And their philosophical debates were actually just two idiots trolling. Right then, after having finally decided that nothing was moving in the room with the upper-left window, Artemis tuned in again to a discussion of great concern to boys all over the planet.

Breasts.

“Dude, you’re like thirteen,” she heard Wally say, as deadpan as possible, as if this was his ‘because I said so’ to counterattack some argument from Robin.

“Right, and you were how old when you started to become aware of girls, again?” drawled boy wonder, and though he was a few branches under and a few trees to the right, Artemis could picture the smirk as it formed on his smug face.

Wally didn’t disappoint – his answer was a dignified: “Twelve – but that’s different!”

“How is that?” asked the younger boy, and Artemis silently wondered, _yes, how?_

“My mentor wasn’t the Bat? And my hormones were up in a bigger frenzy, because, duh, Kid Flash here.”

The few seconds it took for Robin to come up with an answer to that, Artemis’s mind provided a rather comical image of tiny, microscopic Wallys jumping up and down screaming ‘boobies’.

“Okay,” said Robin into their earpieces, interrupting that mental movie theatre before it got worse. “Okay, number one – I don’t understand why everyone just assumes that Batman’s put a chastity belt on me—“

“There _has_ been speculation,” interrupted Wally, and Artemis nodded mutely at her tree branches.

“Quiet, you ass – and number two, frenzied hormones due to speed is a lame way to excuse yourself from trying to get your boob cred from groping Wonder Woman.”

Artemis’ eyebrows rose high in shock, just as Wally muttered, “Yes, well, she _is_ wonderful, let me just say—“

“Wally, don’t act as if you got the cred, we saw the way she stared at you before you even started. She’d have bitten your head off.”

“Amazons…” muttered Wally, and the dejected tone in his voice was Artemis’ cue to put a stop to this before it degenerated even further.

“As much as I love listening to Wonder Boy sharing all these entertaining moments of Mini Flash and his failed adventure into the land of boob cred, I think we should just stop the conversation before any of you end up confessing something I have to make an effort to conceal from M’gann during mind link. You guys have no idea how hard it is to think about waffles for three minutes straight – and the consequences of that.”

“Well that explains this Sunday breakfast,” Robin said, no trace of embarrassment in his voice. It was as if he wasn’t even bothered by everything she’d heard, or as if she’d been included in this ‘bro talk’ from the beginning.

Wally, on the other hand, she could practically _hear_ having problems coping with her new-found knowledge of his exploits into pre-teen flirting, and if Artemis knew him right, he’d soon say something dumb to distract her attention. “Hey, Artemis, since you know so much about boob cred, when’d you get yours, huh?” And there it was.

She ran her finger down the spine of one arrow nonchalantly, and answered. “I was eleven.”

“ _What?_ ” “Who with?” “Are you serious?!”

She rolled her eyes at the tree, because they weren’t in sight, silently asking the bark if it saw what she had to go through on every mission. The bark wasn’t very understanding. “My _own_ , you morons, now shut up and keep quiet for a few minutes so we can pretend this was a real mission when we get back.”

There was a whine coming from one of the boys, she couldn’t tell which – probably not Robin, though, Robin was too cool to whine, the brat – and then there was silence. Only her, the tree, and the flickering porch light below now.

 **MARCH 10TH, 02:35  
SEWAGE TUNNEL, UNDERGROUND; SOMEWHERE ELSE**

Okay, so she was clearly wrong about adults having secret intentions with this mission. As it turned out, she would probably have to write Black Canary an apology letter for daring to think that she’d sent them out with the sole purpose of clearing the house. Not that the heroine would know what Artemis was thinking, but it was the knowledge of it that would haunt her for – alright, no, that was a lie.

Either way, here they were, crawling through the underground sewage tunnels leading from the cabin to what Robin had chalked off as a potential ‘true lair of evil’. They left no trace to speak of behind them, considering how they were in _water_ , disgusting water to be specific, but they had definitely knocked a few goons out and left them tied up for the police to pick up. Later. From a broom closet – Artemis’ idea, after a round of bickering with Wally over how _she_ could figure out at least twenty objects with which to cut loose in the main room alone and therefore it wasn’t that much of a stretch to think that the goons would find the three neurons needed to find one and escape, thus making it necessary to lock them up good and proper.

It had started with the arrival of the jeep, almost unseen by the three of them, considering how they’d been more invested in a game of ‘I spy’ to pass time before returning to base at that moment (and no, that was _not_ going on their reports – ever). The men who got out of it could’ve just been a couple of bros coming to the cabin to share some beer with their bigger bro (“Or a gay threesome,” Artemis had deadpanned), except they went inside carrying big metal cases. Big metal cases were usually always a sign of deadly weapons, so of course they’d slipped straight into mission mode at that point. Robin had the bigger stealth, but Artemis was the one dressed in enough green to be able to ‘play tree’ if she wanted to pass unnoticed – they’d both decided to leave Wally behind, because there were no red and yellow _anything_ that could blend in with the surroundings, and even if he did have camouflage mode, he was too loud and possibly hyperactive at that moment.

That hadn’t sat very well with the Boy Wonderfully Idiotic, obviously, because not three seconds after Artemis had slipped inside the house through the window she’d been acquainting herself with earlier and Robin had confirmed his position at under the porch stairs, Wally had started humming in their ears. Since they both risked being exposed if they barked at him for it, they had to slip around quietly through an entire rendition of Pink Panther. (Artemis discovered that Wally had a relatively _okay_ voice, but that was as far as she was willing to give.) As usual, and despite his fervent attempts to make the superpowerless members of his team lose their temper, the infiltration went smoothly, and both she and Robin would’ve caught up the entire end of the conversation between the goons (arms dealers, they’d discovered; advanced alien technology, blah blah) from their hiding spots, except –

Except Wally started humming the theme to Mission Impossible.

From her spot, curled in the shadows of a corner on one side of the wall and listening to the goon-chit-chat going on in the kitchen, she could see Robin standing across from her, lips forming a thin line and a twitch in his leg. Their eyes met.

 _Dammit._

She couldn’t remember which one of the two had started humming along to Wally, her or Robin, but she did remember that they’d done it at the exact moment the first goon stepped back into the living room, making him stop in the doorway. He went down with one kick from Robin, part-skills, part surprise at seeing two kids humming spy songs while doing impressions of wall posters. The other two goons were bigger and harder to beat, and Wally joined them in the blink of an eye.

As she walked through the tunnels they’d discovered under the cabin, Artemis wondered if it was worth mentioning in her future report that the three of them had come up with a rather impressive rendition of the Mission Impossible theme song while in armed battle. Batman would probably ground them for life, but surely someone would appreciate the humour.

“Ugh, water – if I had a penny for every time we have missions that end up in water,” she grumbled, poking aside a piece of something indiscernible with the tip of her arrow, pulling a face.

“You’d be one penny rich for me,” Wally quipped from behind her to her left. “Water missions are yours and Robin’s bonding bromantic moments, remember?”

“Look at that, Artemis, Wally just included you in the bro club,” Robin added from her right, resisting the urge to grin, because it was hard to grin while waddling through sewage waters.

“I’m shedding tears, I promise,” was her dry reply, tossing Wally a look in the darkness. “Anyway, you’d better cross your fingers that this doesn’t end up like the usual water missions do.”

“With the baddies behind bars?”

“No – well, yes – but drowning in it.”

There was a moment’s pause while they contemplated the impractical horror of drowning in sewage water, shuddered, and walked another ten feet. Then, finally, Robin added his cherry on the cake: “I thought those missions went swimmingly.”

  
 **MARCH 10TH, 04:45  
EVIL LAIR, UNDERGROUND; SOMEWHERE UNDER APPLEBEE’S**

“Blargh!” was probably not a good punchline to use when bursting in on an evil lair of some villain bent on world destruction. It wasn’t even acceptable when the villain turned out to be a simple greedy businessman with boredom and money to spare, but not too much, considering how the evil lair was underneath the Applebee’s. (“Well, their food is so good, it could be _evil_ ,” Wally had said.) It didn’t cause a very good impression, but neither of them were trying to cause an impression as much as they were willing to get out of the sewers.

As it turned out, they’d been synching up with the nightly treatment cycle, which was good news for the city, but bad news for everyone, especially Artemis’ hair (“I don’t care about technicality, you butt, _covered_ in it is _worse_ than drowning in pure water!”). So yes, their entrance had been one of the worst and lamest, but at least so was their opponent, and so that fight was over pretty quickly.

By the time they’d secured the perimeter and sent Wally upstairs to call for someone from the League because there was no reception underground, most of the stinky water had evaporated from her skin. Robin was still trying to squeeze it out of his cloak.

“You’re a real dick, you know that?” she conversely said, watching the young Boy Wonder squeeze sewage water on top of an unconscious goon’s head.

His head snapped up, and even with the mask she could see the shock in his eyes. “Who told you?”

Whatever her answer was going to be, however, had been interrupted by Wally flashing down to the lair again, a childish grin on his face.

“Guys, look, souvenir!” In his hands, staring at them all with the creepy dead eyes of a doll, was one of those annoying clapping monkeys with metal plates. Her teammate was now turning into a kleptomaniac.

Fabulous day. Fantastic mission.

“It’s not really a souvenir, dude. You just picked that up from the counter upstairs, you didn’t fight anyone for it – pick something from down here,” Robin informed Wally, stepping closer to poke at the monkey curiously, expecting it to turn radioactive (apparently).

“Aw, man, but – but I already took this, it’s got sewage water on it now, and I really like it,” answered Wally, but Artemis was far from buying the pout, considering the way he was oggling the wicked looking knife he’d dodged in battle, lying on the floor.

“You know, you should take that to Superhunk,” suggested Artemis, because spending more than twelve hours on a mission with these two – no, being on a team with these two – was rubbing off on her abilities to be a troll to her friends.

“He hates monkeys, though. Says so every mission – I hate monkeys, I really hate monkeys, garr garr arr, I am emotionally unavailable.”

“Nice impression,” Robin complimented, nodding at Wally approvingly. “But no, I agree with Artemis – I think it’s time we teach him a bit about what _irony_ is like.”

The dynamics between the three of them was probably going to come bite them in the ass in the future, Artemis knew it. Whether it would be a bite from an angry Superman clone, or being discovered singing Justin Bieber on a mission was left for speculation, much like Robin’s chastity belt. But it was going to happen, indubitably, and the fact that when Batman and Black Canary came to pick them up and arrest the goons they were playing Go Fish with a deck of cards Artemis had found on one of the goons (“Souvenir!”) was only proof.

 **MARCH 13TH  
MOUNT JUSTICE**

So – they were grounded.

It hadn’t been specified, but the three of them were pretty sure that no mission for two days meant that they’d messed up and were grounded under further notice. As a result, it just meant more training, fiddling with the NO SIGNAL television, dealing with M’gann’s sudden supply of gingerbread (Robin and Wally had blamed her for that, but she didn’t care, seeing as these tasted edible, and Wally basically ate anything), and avoiding Connor (who still did not understand irony).

It also meant that, seeing as it was required for her to be at the base daily, just in case danger arose, Artemis now had a chance to do what she’d started to enjoy doing best. Spying on grown-ups. She’d convinced Robin and Wally to let her test a new prototype of super-hearing earpieces, and slipped into the ventilation shafts to spend idle time.

The choice was limited, of course, but and considering how one of the ‘adults’ was a robot who might be able to hear her silent lurking in the ceiling, she’d stopped three rooms before Red Tornado’s office, leaned back against the wall, and turned the earpiece off.

“—said it wouldn’t work, but you’ve seen the results. I’m just saying, they might not be orthodox in their ways, but I think we could inform everyone that the waters have calmed, especially between those two.”

That – Artemis realized – was Black Canary. And they were obviously talking about her, Robin and Wally, it was so clear it hurt. She rolled her eyes and held a staring contest with the wall in front of her, still listening in.

“True. However, are you sure it is wise to keep them grounded for so long? I am saying this because I do not think it would benefit the team as a whole if they returned back to fighting due to cabin fever.”

That – and this was a bit of a shock – was Kaldur, obviously a part of the adult group. Well, of course, she realized, because even if he was hot to stare at, Kaldur was probably, like, _fifty-seven_ at heart.

“I’m not holding them grounded, Kaldur,” Black Canary’s voice came in through her earpiece again. “I just think they deserve a bit of a rest. It was a school night they were out in, and I know for a fact that Artemis and Wally both had an exam the morning after that. A bit of a break will do them good, too – they might bond beyond the missions, which will only fortify the teamwork.”  
Yeah, and it has nothing to do with you trying to get me to admit I’m generally okay with Wally’s existence every time we have therapy, Artemis’ dark thoughts shot at the woman.

“It might prove to be moot, either way. The three of them requested more missions together, surveillance specifically – I assume Robin meant surveillance too, when he said ‘veillance’ – the very day they returned after the previous one,” was the specific tone that belonged to Red Tornado, the voice of reason, logic, and all-around coolness.

“So there you have it, plan went smoothly. You’ll all have another mission soon, so try to work on your combat in the meantime. You should figure out some maneuvers with them,” suggested Black Canary, and Artemis could practically hear the reluctant slump of acceptance in Kaldur’s shoulders.

A few moments later, she heard the closing of a door and made a note to compliment the guys on the fine tuning, before she heard the particular inhale that came before someone said something important.

“Youth is wasted on the young.”

“Red, you’re a robot – I don’t recall you having a youth to mourn for.”

“It is a metaphorical quip. I was just thinking of the speed at which those three requested more missions. So eager.”

“Yes, they grow up so fast.” A soft laugh followed, before the creak of a chair as someone sat down. “Either way, it’s probably best that they relax for a while. I don’t think the government can pay all the therapy those villains will need to deal with nightmares to the tune of Mission Impossible and the attack of the sewage monsters.”

At that point, Artemis decided enough spying was enough. Her leg was falling asleep, anyway, so she turned the earpiece off and crawled back to the labs to give the boys her report. Besides, for some reason or another, she was in a serious mood to kill time teaching them how to play poker, although she suspected they both know, and that Robin would take them for all their money – but these were just the risks she was willing to take.

After all, it could’ve been worse. They could’ve been sitting in the crater of a volcano for five hours waiting for the chance at villainous activity.

And everyone knew that heat dried up your throat and lowered the chances of a badass fighting soundtrack.


End file.
